The present invention relates to a power-and-free conveyor.
Throughout the specification and claims, the terms "front" and "rear" are used based on the direction of advance of the carrier. Thus the term "front" refers to the direction in which the carrier advances, and the term "rear" to the opposite direction. Further the term "lateral" refers to a direction transverse to the conveyor line.
In the case where large elongated articles, such as motor vehicles, are transported by a power-and-free conveyor, a collision is likely to occur between the articles on two carriers when one carrier is approaching the other.
To avoid such a collision during the transport of large articles on the power-and-free conveyor, carriers are used which comprise, for example, three free trolleys, connecting bars interconnecting the free trolleys and a hanger connected to one or both of the bars. The carrier is so adapted that the article supported on the hanger will not project from either of the front and rear ends of the carrier, or that even if one of the front and rear ends of the article should project from one end of the carrier, the length of the projection will be smaller than the distance between the other end of the article and the other end of the carrier.
However, such carriers, which have a considerably large overall length, require a very large space for accommodation when held out of transport operation, so that it is impossible to effectively use the space within the factory.